Baby boy is starting to say more words these days. They aren’t many, but they sure are cute to hear! He’s been saying dada for a while now, and just recently started saying mama too, though he doesn’t say it very often. He was also saying small words like, wow, uh uh(to say no), and his sister’s name. In the past three months, especially in the last few weeks, he’s progressed to saying more words and even some phrases. Here’s some of what he says:

No!

Yeah

I see you!

Oh no!

Uh oh!

This way

Bye!

Hi!

Those words and phrases you can distinctly make out. In the case of no, it’s very, very clear! Isn’t that word always one they learn right away? There are a couple more words that are a little harder to understand, but we know it’s what he’s trying to say.

Leche (milk) – He also signs this along with trying to say it.

1, 2, 3, go! – He doesn’t actually pronounce the numbers, but you can hear he says three one-syllable words before he says the word go, which is clear.

Thank you – Pretty much every time we hand him something, he responds with a two-syllable phrase that very much sounds like he’s saying thank you!

It’s fun when kids are first learning to talk. I love hearing his little voice developing and seeing how quickly he picks up on things. He learned to say “I see you!” really fast after hearing me say it only a couple of times to him while playing peek-a-boo. Big sister loves hearing him talk too and will be the first one to come running if she thinks he said something new. Her favorite, of course, is hearing him say her name. She just about melts when he does that!

What were some of your babies’ first words?

Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Disney Baby. I’ll be joining the Disney Baby blogging team next month, and look forward to sharing these kinds of stories with you over there! Stay tuned for more details!

]]>http://www.modernmami.com/baby-boy-stories/first-words/feed/0Tantrums: No Easier to Deal With the Second Time Aroundhttp://www.modernmami.com/parenting/tantrums-not-easy-second-child/
http://www.modernmami.com/parenting/tantrums-not-easy-second-child/#commentsWed, 13 Jun 2012 23:46:43 +0000http://www.modernmami.com/?p=5504

Tantrums. We’re so there. Oh, how I wish we could skip this stage of parenting! Can anyone make that happen?

Tantrums are nothing new to us, of course. Being that this is our second child, we know all too well what it’s like to deal with a toddler and tantrums. Even so, it’s hard to actually get through them!

When baby girl was almost 18 months old, the terrible twos hit. And they hit hard. She actually started acting up even before that, but 18 months was probably when it got really bad. Similarly, baby boy has started his tantrums before the 18-month mark. Luckily, though, they’re not as bad as his big sister’s. Let’s hope that doesn’t change.

Back when we dealt with baby girl’s toddler tantrums, most people would provide us with some form of the following advice:

Ignore it.

Let her cry.

Some kids will hit themselves.

So what if she makes herself throw up, what’s the worst that can happen?

When you’re in the moment, though, it’s very hard to ignore your child banging her head against the wall or crying so hard she vomits. Though baby boy is not doing either of those things – he really just cries and runs around in a circle for a bit – it’s still hard to ignore the crying fit.

The good thing is that we are more prepared this time around and know that if we don’t pay it much mind, he’ll calm down. We also know that he’s truly just frustrated or upset about a situation and cannot communicate that to us. Reminding ourselves of this makes it easier to distract him from the offense or help him calm down faster.

It’s still tough.

One thing we were told back when baby girl’s tantrums got to a very difficult stage, was that we should start formal time-outs. We had already been doing time-outs, but not formally. We weren’t telling her it was a time-out and we also weren’t using a specific chair. Perhaps it’s time to initiate the time-out ritual with baby boy before his tantrums worsen.

Baby girl’s tantrums did eventually get better. We stuck with time-outs and soon enough, we didn’t even need them. I just can’t remember how long it took us to get to that point. I know that baby boy’s tantrum stage will also pass just as hers did. But, I’m already ready for them to be over.

How long did the tantrum stage last for your kids?

Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Disney Baby. I’ll be joining the Disney Baby blogging team next month, and look forward to sharing these kinds of stories with you over there! Stay tuned for more details!

It’s funny how different baby boy is from his big sister, and yet, how alike they also are. They are so alike, in fact, that when baby boy was a few months old, it was just like looking at a photo of baby girl from when she was the same age.

The similarities show up in interesting ways, though, and go beyond the physical. One thing he’s been doing lately is what we call the “pretend I’m sleeping game.” He lays down, pretends to snore (full-on snorting noise), and then sits up looking around the room saying, “Huh? Huh? Huh?” That last part is him pretending to wake up surprised.

His little game is funny, but it’s especially interesting and entertaining to us because his big sister did the exact same thing when she was about his age. And, I mean exactly. She played that game in the very same way and laughed about it just like he does.

To be honest, we’re not even sure where he picked up this game or if he saw someone do it. Baby girl hasn’t done it since she was much younger, so he didn’t learn it from her, for once. He just started doing it one day out of nowhere.

Of course, there are many other things we’ve noticed are the same between our boy and our girl. Some are very obvious and others more hidden. It’s amazing to us how two children can share so much, though they each have very distinct personalities. We’re loving it!

Have you noticed many similarities in your children or are they vastly different?

Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Disney Baby. I’ll be joining the Disney Baby blogging team next month, and look forward to sharing these kinds of stories with you over there! Stay tuned for more details!

As I look back on this blog, I realize that one of the things I enjoy most is sharing special parenting moments with you. It helps me reflect, take in, and enjoy those little, everyday moments, that are actually quite extraordinary. They are the ones we talk about when we get together and reminisce. Those are the moments that have created memories, as small as they seemed at the time.

I realize, though, that I haven’t documented much of baby boy’s life thus far. He’s almost eighteen months old already and is growing so fast! I want to take in his small moments too and be able to marvel at his simple, big, and momentous occasions. I think I’ll start sharing more of those with you from now on. Let’s start with some of what he’s doing at the moment.

Baby boy is adventurous. He loves to walk, walk, and walk some more, all around the house, outside, and pretty much anywhere you’ll let him. Of course, this also means he likes to get into every corner, open doors, climb, and find his way into trouble as he explores.

My little boy is sweet as can be. I’ve said it before that I was genuinely surprised by just how sweet boys can be. He loves to give rounds of hugs and goes back and forth between daddy, mommy, and his big sister. He’s a bit stingy with kisses, though.

Baby boy is a comedian. This doesn’t surprise me much since his daddy and big sister are much the same way. He now knows that certain things he does will get a laugh from us and will do them on purpose. Of course, seeing him laugh (that big, belly-bouncing laugh that babies have), is all we really need to get us laughing.

There’s so much more he does on a daily basis, from running away when he knows he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t, to sitting down to “read” a book. The transition from baby to toddler is a fun stage in parenting, one that I look forward to documenting a second time.

In the meantime, I’m excited to share that I’m joining a team of bloggers for Disney Baby and will have a chance to share parenting stories with their audience! Stories, anecdotes, and memories such as the ones I’ve described will be shared by the Disney Baby blogging team on the Disney Baby site starting next month. Until then, expect to see them here on ModernMami.com a couple of times a week. If you want, visit the sites of the rest of the Disney Baby bloggers and get to know them!

Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Disney Baby. I’ll be joining the Disney Baby blogging team next month, and look forward to sharing these kinds of stories with you over there! Stay tuned for more details!

Disclosure: I received Little Pim products for review purposes. No other compensation received.

By now you know that my husband and I have committed to raising bilingual children. Coming from different cultures ourselves, our daughter has the benefit of growing up multicultural and learning two languages – English and Spanish. Though my first language was Spanish, having moved to Florida at a young age and living here the majority of my life, has resulted in me speaking mostly Spanglish rather than true Spanish. I often have to force myself to think of the words in order to hold a Spanish-only conversation. That is why I love to compensate speaking Spanish around the house with Spanish books, shows, games, and music, so that my baby girl can be exposed to Spanish as much as possible.

Little Pim Spanish Word & Phrase Cards

With 60 cards to choose from, my daughter has fun picking out a few cards at random and making up a story about Little Pim. I love this for two reasons: 1) She’s not just staring at the card and words and repeating them one after the other. It’s much more interactive, which helps (in my opinion) her learn the word or phrase better. 2) Making up stories is a great way to encourage imaginative play!

We take out these cards a few at a time and either make up stories or just review how to say the word/phrase in Spanish. But, we’re usually making up stories – it’s much more fun!

Little Pim Spanish Bop CD

This CD has 15 songs from artists like Dan Zanes and Milkshake. There are three songs that are repeated in English at the end and all the lyrics for each song are included in the pamphlet in both Spanish and English. My daughter especially liked “Tía Monica” and its merengue rhythm, but other fun songs include “Clap Clap Clap” and “Las Comidas.” Of course, a personal favorite of mine is “El Coquí” since Coquís are native to Puerto Rico (no bias whatsoever here).

Little Pim Word Bag iPhone/iPod Touch App

Little Pim’s Word Bag allows your child to play in either Spanish or French. We enjoyed playing with this app on our iPod Touch and I love how it matches the style and feel of the DVD. Using the app, my daughter was able to easily find what words were in Little Pim’s word bag. It’s easy for her to use her finger to “take” the words out of his bag, hear and see the word, and laugh along with Little Pim.

Image from AppShopper

However, I think that it would have been much more cool to be able to “match” the words to the picture and make it a bit more interactive and game-like. It would have been fun to play a game and perhaps help Little Pim find his way through a story scenario by finding the words he needs. Or something like that anyway. Clearly, I’m not a game designer; I just think an interactive element to the app might make it even more fun than it already is.

Where to Purchase

You can purchase the Word and Phrase Cards and the Spanish Bop CD directly from the Little Pim site for $14.95 each or you can also find them on Amazon for the same price (in case you have Amazon gift cards you want to use).

Giveaway

One of you will win a set of the Little Pim Spanish Word & Phrase Cards and the Spanish Bop CD.

How to Enter

If you’d like to enter this contest for a Little Pim Spanish Word & Phrase Cards and Spanish Bop CD, simply leave a comment belowand tell us which product you think your kids will enjoy from the Little Pim site.

For extra entries:

Tweet about this contest with a link back to this post and include @modernmami in your tweet. You must leave a separate comment with a link to your tweet for your entry to count.

Follow @Little_Pim on twitter and tweet the following: “@little_pim Hola Little Pim! Following from @modernmami for the #modernmami contest!“

Write a blog post on your own blog sharing with your readers your favorite Little Pim product you found on the Little Pim site. Make sure to link back to this contest page in your post. Leave a comment with your post link.

All entries must be in by Thursday, March 11 at 11:59 pm EST. Make sure to leave a separate comment for each entry. The winner will be chosen using Random.org and will be notified via email. (Please be sure to provide a valid email address with your entry.)

]]>http://www.modernmami.com/reviews/little-pim-spanish-giveaway/feed/40How Young Children can Help with the Laundryhttp://www.modernmami.com/wahm/toddlers-preschoolers-chores-laundry/
http://www.modernmami.com/wahm/toddlers-preschoolers-chores-laundry/#commentsMon, 01 Mar 2010 18:53:02 +0000http://www.modernmami.com/?p=1981

Early last month, I posed the question, “Can Preschoolers Help Clean?” and provided a list of chores for preschoolers to do around the house. Many of you agreed that yes, preschoolers can indeed help clean around the house and even provided a few additional suggestions based on what your kids help with.

One of the original suggestions I had listed was to have your young child help with folding clothes. As I thought about it more, I realized that my daughter actually helps with pretty much all aspects of doing the laundry. If we involve her, she can be of help from beginning to end when it’s laundry day. In case you hadn’t thought about it, let me share the ways your young children can be of more help with this task.

Photo by FL4Y from Flickr

How your Toddler or Preschooler can Help with the Laundry

Sort clothes – Your child can easily take the clothes out of the hamper and help you properly create the necessary piles. On our laundry day, what we do is start a few piles on our floor, tell her what each pile is for (most are recognizable by color), and have her sort her own clothes.

Load washer – We put her step stool in front of the washing machine, bring a pile over, and have her help throw the clothes into the washer. It’s so simple, but she loves doing it.

Load dryer – Similarly, when it’s time to change out the loads, she stands next to the dryer and pushes in the clothes as one of us takes them out of the washing machine. Sometimes, she takes the dryer sheet and throws it in too before we start up the dryer.

Once the clothes are dry, she also helps us take them out of the dryer and throw them on the couch.

Fold clothes – Though the clothes may not end up folded perfectly, your preschooler can help fold his/her clothes or even some towels. Their clothes are small, so they’re perfect for little hands to fold. They may be able to hep fold other clothes, depending on the size, but generally, their own clothes work best.

Hang up clothes – Grab a stack of hangers, and lay out a few shirts on the couch. Your preschooler can easily slide a hanger into each shirt, and make a new pile of ready to hang clothes. This also works best with their own clothes and the smaller hangers.

Now that you know how your preschooler can help out with the laundry, let’s think about why this is actually a good thing for not only them, but you as well.

Photo by Anna Maria Horner from Flickr

Why Helping with the Laundry is Good for your Preschooler

I’m sure there are many more reasons why helping with the laundry is beneficial to young children, but here is a short list of the benefits I’ve seen:

Color recognition

Recognizing patterns

Categorization

Coordination

Feeling helpful

Teamwork

Teaches responsibility and pride in taking care of what we own

Photo by Ruth from Flickr

How Letting your Preschooler Help with the Laundry Helps You

Getting some help with the housework is always a good thing, right? But, particularly if you work from home or are striving to create more work-life balance in your days, then involving your young children in daily chores will help. You may think that if you just do the chores yourself, you’ll be able to get them done faster. However, how often do you find yourself interrupted when doing one task because your son or daughter wants some type of attention? Do you really get it done very fast?

Keeping them involved will allow you to have conversations with your kids while getting things done. It lessens the feeling of stress because you’re spending time with them while doing housework. They will feel like a “big helper” and you may find that it helps the overall mood in the house.

Do your kids currently help with the laundry? Do you feel it’s a learning experience for them?

I recently participated in the Trekaroo KidsMobile blog carnival, where a few Orlando bloggers created lists of their favorite kid-friendly activities in the Orlando and Central Florida area. Many of the lists created have suggestions for traveling to Disney. I offered up a list of Free and Low-Cost Activities in Orlando for Preschoolers.

Since Orlando is a popular vacation destination for those with families, and you may one day find yourself coming to visit the various theme parks housed here, you might find these links handy.

The Orlando KidsMobile blog carnival has many recommendations from Trekaroo families and local bloggers. Check out the following lists for more information on activities for kids in Orlando:

The Trekaroo KidsMobile’s next stop is Memphis, Tennessee. The Trekaroo KidsMobile is a blog carnival with a twist. It’s designed to provide a unique opportunity for mom and dad bloggers to be featured on Trekaroo while 1) expressing their unique point of view, and 2) getting a web of link exchanges. Join them for one of their next stops.

Today I found myself home with my baby girl but also needing to clean. She didn’t go to preschool today, but I knew that I couldn’t let her being home get in the way of cleaning. This is a busy and short week for me due to the upcoming trip to Blissdom, so it is important that I stay on track.

So, I asked her to help me clean. This way we’d be doing it together and she’d feel involved. Plus, it helps her learn there are things to take care of around the house and that it’s good for all to pitch in as a family.

Obviously, young children have limitations when it comes to cleaning and helping around the house. What chores are preschool friendly, then?

Fold clothes: You can ask your preschooler to fold his/her clothes or even some towels. Since their clothes are so tiny anyway, they’re perfect for little hands to fold. My girl is also able to fold small towels, like kitchen towels. And, it doesn’t matter how they’re folded. I mean, really, if her shirts aren’t perfectly folded and lined up, life will go on.

Sweep: She may not be able to sweep the entire kitchen, but if she can sweep up a smaller area while I do something else, it helps. This works especially well if you use a swiffer, since all they have to do is push the stick up and down.

Clean bathroom sink: The first time I saw my daughter cleaning the sink in her classroom, I was amazed. “What are you doing?” I asked her. “Cleaning the sink! It helps my teacher.” I had no idea she knew how to do that! Now, she can run a sponge or rag around her bathroom sink while I clean the toilet.

Wash dishes: This started at my mom’s house. My daughter decided to ask her abuela if she could help her wash the dishes. So, my mom brought a stool by the sink, gave her a sponge and a bowl of soapy water, and said have at it. Since then, she’s done it a couple of times at our house too. Of course, we don’t give her the extra greasy or messy dishes, but she can safely wash a few cups and small plates.

Clean tables: My daughter’s been doing this since she was about two years old (maybe even earlier). It’s the easiest thing for her to do; she just has to swipe a paper towel over the table after I’ve sprayed it with some child-safe cleaner.

I’m sure there are many more household tasks and chores you can find that your preschooler can help with. If they’re anything like my daughter, they’ll love being able to help out. Just this morning she said that helping me clean was her “favorite thing to do in the house.” Now, mind you, her “favorite thing” to do changes from hour to hour, but still, for her to say it means she really does enjoy helping.

There are many new TV shows and movies coming up that are age-appropriate for toddlersand preschoolers. I wanted to share a few that are showing this week you may want to check out.

This Friday, Disney’s The Princess and the Frog opens nationwide. In case you didn’t know, Princess Tiana is Disney’s first African-American heroine.

My baby girl has been anxiously waiting for the movie to open and has been seeing the commercials and trailers for months now. The only way we could help her understand how long she had to wait was to tell her it wouldn’t be out until her birthday. So, now that she knows her birthday is around the corner, when she sees Princess Tiana on TV, in the stores, or wherever, she asks, “That movie comes on my birthday, right?” Guess where we’ll probably be on Friday?

This past Sunday, a new Dora special, Dora’s Christmas Carol Adventure, premiered on Nickelodeon. In this episode, Swiper tries to swipe the Christmas star from Dora’s Nochebuena party and winds up on Santa’s naughty list. I love that it’s a Nochebuena party (Christmas Eve), since that is when a majority of Latinos have the family get-together and dinner, not on Christmas day. If you missed it, you can catch it again this Sunday, December 13, at 7 p.m. (ET) on Nick Jr.

Nick Jr. will premiere Signing Time, a music series dedicated to teaching sign language to preschoolers, today, Wednesday, December 9. Signing Time teaches American Sign Language (ASL) vocabulary-building signs that are useful in daily life. This is one of those in-between shows that play throughout the day and I’m told the first one is scheduled for after the 1 pm ET show. I plan to catch a few of these to help baby girl learn some more signs. Ok, really, it’s to help me learn some since she already learns many at school and is often teaching them to me.

Enjoy the shows this week and let me know what you and your kids think after watching them!

There are many forms of discipline and punishment that parents use with their children. In our house, we’ve used the time out method, the just talking method, the redirecting method, and we’ve even yelled at times out of losing our patience. Hey, it happens, right?

But, lately, we’ve come up with a new system for helping our nearly-four year old daughter behave better. Ok, “we” as in the husband came up with the idea and I take half the credit since I use the method. What’s his is mine, isn’t it?

We recently turned our guest room into a play room since we don’t often have guests. (Because she needed just one more space in the house to clutter up.) The reality is that we all wanted a family “fun” room and wanted her room to be more of a tranquil space for relaxation and rest. So, we now have a play room and because she helped remodel the space, she has taken full ownership of that room. It is – quite frankly – her play room.

Because of that, it has also become the one true thing that she hates to not have. Therefore, we have the following hanging up on the door to that room.

What you see is a dry-erase board with sad faces on it. Normally, there are 3 happy faces on there. It’s sort of like a behavior chart.

How it works:

If baby girl does something naughty or doesn’t listen, we give a warning. If she still doesn’t listen, she gets a sad face.

After 3 sad faces, we close the door to her playroom.

She must earn back her 3 happy faces with good behavior. We try to make the acts equal; that is, if she lost a happy face because of whining, we’re not expecting she clean up her room to earn it back. A smaller act that is comparable will do. On the other hand, if she lost a happy face because she threw a tantrum or disrespected us, then the act to earn it back must be equally as big.

Once she earns her 3 happy faces back, she gains access to the playroom again.

And the cycle continues.

Why this works:

She is seeing a visual of her mistakes as well as her achievements.

My girl needs more than just stickers as an incentive.

The playroom is a place of her own that she enjoys so it’s a true punishment for it to be taken away versus just being scolded or sitting in time out.

Of course, explanations, warnings, and the “after-talk” is all a part of this to help her understand what happened, why it happened, and how she should act next time.

We’ve really seen it work over the last few months. She even goes through periods of weeks at a time without losing a happy face.